Alyssa Milano | Elsbeth

• Genre: Police procedural, Comedy drama
• Created by: Robert King, Michelle King
• Starring: Carrie Preston, Carra Patterson, Wendell Pierce
• Composers: Siddhartha Khosla, Garrett Gonzales
• No. of seasons: 3
• No. of episodes: 40
• Executive producers: Jonathan Tolins, Liz Glotzer, Robert King, Michelle King, Bryan Goluboff, Erica Shelton, Gail Barringer
• Producer: Carrie Preston
• Running time: 43 minutes
• Production companies: Nemorino Productions, King Size Productions, CBS Studios
• Network: CBS
• Release: February 29, 2024 – present

The series focuses on the offbeat Elsbeth Tascioni, an unconventional but astute attorney who, after a successful career in Chicago, uses her singular point of view to make unique observations and corner criminals alongside the NYPD. Ostensibly assigned by the United States Department of Justice to oversee a monitorship or consent decree after some controversial arrests, her real mission initially (revealed over the course of the first season) is to investigate Captain C. W. Wagner for corruption. Most episodes use the inverted detective story format.

"Scenes From an Italian Restaurant"

Elsbeth takes Teddy and his boyfriend, Roy, on a "famous New York crime scenes tour" which includes Pupetta's, a restaurant in Little Italy. The story goes that in 1998, Eddie Nova assassinated Goldie Moresco of the Del Ponte mafia family, sparking a mob war that wiped out both families. The only survivor was the Del Ponte capo's daughter Pupetta, the restaurant's namesake who married the only witness, waiter Gene Genetti. When Gene is injured in a hit-and-run accident after agreeing to meet Eslbeth, she suspects that Pupetta is behind it. Together with Kaya and Det. Buzz Fleming who worked on the original murder case, Elsbeth arranges to have Goldie's body exhumed. After the exhumation finds one of Pupetta's fingernails stuck in Goldie's remains and using DNA evidence, Elsbeth proves that Gene Jr. was the son of Pupetta and Goldie and that Pupetta killed Goldie in a fit of rage when he wouldn't marry her, then blamed Eddie which started the war.

"Ramen Holiday"

Elsbeth is reunited with several of the killers she busted during her time in New York: Alex Modarian, Margo Clarke, Vanessa Holmes, Quinn Powers, Joe Dillon, Pupetta del Ponte, Freya Frostad, and Matteo Hart. Modarian puts on a play for Elsbeth with his fellow prisoners blaming her for their predicaments. He boasts about an upcoming transfer to a nicer unit, but Modarian is stabbed to death before it happens. Elsbeth is unable to resist prying into Modarian’s murder, with the prison warden Mrs. Martin willingly providing her some helpful information. Curious that no murder weapon was located, Elsbeth learns from Pupetta that ramen can be molded into effective weapons. Upon learning of this, Mrs. Martin charges Pupetta with Modarian’s murder, although Elsbeth does not believe Pupetta was the culprit. Upon discovering from Margo that Genevieve Hale[c] was temporarily held at the prison after her arrest, Elsbeth has an epiphany: the distinct smell of the crime scene meant only someone from the outside was able to use specific ingredients to craft a ramen knife. Therefore, only one other person could have done it: Mrs. Martin. She was running a black market on contraband items in the prison, but when Modarian threatened to expose the operation in exchange for his transfer, she killed him. Mrs. Martin created an alibi by using the tunnel that Pupetta’s uncle had dug years earlier to get from the men’s wing to the women’s without being seen on the security cameras. Wagner faces off with Edwin Dousant, the judge who had Elsbeth unfairly detained. Wagner gains the leverage he needs to have the charges against Elsbeth dismissed when he discovers that Crawford bribed Dousant to take over the Andy Mertens case.